Content Revised July, 1998

The Basics

I thought it might be helpful to present some of the assumptions upon which the opinions expressed in this site are based. In all the controversy surrounding the use of tobacco in our society today, I believe a few pertinent points have been overlooked.

1. Tobacco was introduced to modern western culture in the form of a gift approximately 500 years ago.
Tobacco was originally presented as a gift to the crew of Christopher Columbus during his first voyage to the new world. It was given by peoples who inhabited Central and South America. In these cultures tobacco had been used since antiquity as a sacred element of magic and healing. As such, like any gift, it is not unreasonable to assume it was genuinely meant to enhance our well being.

2. Tobacco is a foreign element in our culture, and as such is likely to attract controversy and misunderstanding.
A mere 500 years have passed since the introduction of tobacco into our culture, not much in the grand scheme of things. And, since we are a Judeo-Christian-based people, we have very little readily accessible heritage which enables us to easily comprehend the direct use of a plant for sacred or magical purposes. Whatever heritage we might have had in this area was lost when the pagans were exterminated during the Inquisition. By smoking, we are engaging in an activity essentially foreign to our "modern" ways. In contrast, consider that tobacco was used for thousands of years before its introduction to Europeans by the shamans and healers of South, Central, and North America. They used tobacco to enable them to enter into perceptual states which facilitated communication with spirits. In these states, they performed healing, divination, and magic. For a very thorough discussion of this subject, I refer you to the book "Tobacco and Shamanism in South America" by Johannes Wilbert. This book contains a very academic and exhaustive survey of tobacco use by indigenous Americans. It seems the Indians of the pre-colonial Americas not only had a variety of uses for tobacco, but maintained a very encompassing set of beliefs, values, and mythology which went hand in hand with and supported the ways in which tobacco served them. When they shared tobacco with Europeans, the Europeans rather quickly picked up the custom of smoking, but were essentially baffled by the cultural context in which the Indians used it. Nor have we developed any context in the ensuing 400 years which attempts to embrace tobacco as anything other than a questionable personal habit.

 3. In modern western culture, smoking has been a divisive issue since its introduction.
When tobacco was brought back to Europe, two things happened quite quickly. First, Europe quickly went from a continent which had never heard of tobacco, to a continent which supported a significant smoking population. Smoking literally caught on like wildfire. Second, the church began to issue strong negative messages about the moral implications of smoking. They were dead set against it from the beginning. To read some of the rhetoric which accompanied the introduction of tobacco in the 1500s, check out Bill Drake's excellent review of the European Experience with Native American Tobacco. It's amazing how little the argument has changed in over 400 years.

4. Smoking does not yield its secrets to science.
Since much of the controversy regarding smoking begins with conclusions reached by scientific studies, it is helpful to remember that smoking and science were developed and explored by very different cultures. Tobacco has been used since antiquity by cultures indigenous to the Americas, while science was developed by European cultures beginning about the time of the Renaissance. Prior to the voyages of Columbus, Europe and Asia knew nothing of tobacco. Similarly, Native American cultures knew nothing of orthodox science. The Indians used tobacco to communicate with the spirit forces they believed controlled their world. The European scientists sought ways to measure and predict the mechanical processes they believed were at the heart of everything. As such, it is highly unlikely that we will ever see a scientific study which confirms the metaphysical aspects of smoking. If we are to learn anything more about smoking from cultures which have used tobacco for significantly longer than our own, its magical and spiritual aspects in particular, it might be helpful to leave our microscopes at home.

 5. The Basic Paradox
The basic paradox here is that in the 500 years since our "modern" culture was introduced to tobacco, it has found no social value in a plant still regarded as sacred by the peoples who gave it to us. Worse yet, we are now trying to legislate it out of existence. The question is this: In our quest to be modern and validate all things through the eyes of science, have we missed something here?

6. A Disclaimer
Finally, I just want to stress that I am not advocating nor recommending that anyone take up smoking. My purpose here is to provide information which might be helpful if you do choose or have already chosen to smoke or use tobacco in some way. I believe it is important that, if you do choose to use tobacco, you use it in an appropriate context. I hope the information I have provided here will enable you to develop a context which works for you.

Ó MrTedd 1998